USGIF GotGeoint BlogUSGIF promotes geospatial intelligence tradecraft and a stronger community of interest between government, industry, academia, professional organizations and individuals focused on the development and application of geospatial intelligence to address national security objectives.

October 15, 2018

At this year's BIMForum conference in Las Vegas Dr. Barbara Jackson of the University of Denver offered what I would categorize as a hurricane warning to the construction industry; change is coming like a very fast train and either the industry has to change itself or someone from outside will do it as Uber and Airbnb have done to the taxi and accomodation businesses and as Amazon is doing to the grocery business. Because in construction resistance to change is much greater than the motivation to innovate and change, under 30 year olds are saying that the construction companies they want to work for don't exist, so they leave. One of the ways she hopes to help the industry to transform from within is by effecting a culture change by encouraging the under 30s folks not to leave but to stay and transform the industry.

Barb Jackson spent 25 years running her own construction company where she experienced the problems that were facing the industry as a whole. Seriously concerned for the future of the industry, she decided to go into academia to try to do something about them. In her view the key factors that make construction ripe for disruption are

high segmentation and fragmentation

low productivity gains - labour-productivity growth in construction has averaged only 1 percent a year over the past two decades, compared with growth of 2.8 percent for the total world economy.

low adoption of digital technologies - McKinsey Global Institute places construction second to last just ahead of hunting and agriculture

high level of waste - estimates of 30 % waste and rework are typical

lack of leadership - construction is good at management (the mantra is plan to work, work to plan) but lacking in leadership

a culture that discourages change and innovation.

Some have argued that the $10 trillion/year construction industry is not like other businesses, but Barbara's frank response to this is "this is bull, it is." It is difficult to place all the blame on owners, who the designers and contractors say discourage them from doing anything innovative that raises the risk or the industry folks who the owners say resist any change. She offered that perhaps the real culprit is lowest bid procurement which resulted such low margins that the only way to make money on projects was through change orders.

The construction business model is outdated and the collaborative economy as exemplified by Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, and Alibaba and what happened to the accomodation, taxi, media, and retail industries is a real threat for construction and an opportunity for an outside entrepreneur. Companies like Artiman who look for industries that are ripe for disruption view the construction industry as low tech, archaic, wasteful, characterized by low productivity, with an out-dated business model, in a word ripe for disruption.

She cited the example of what is happening to the grocery business as another example of someone from outside effecting change to an industry that has been resistant to change. When Amazon acquired Whole Foods, the stock of Kroger, Super-value, and others lost 14% of its value overnight. Even Costco and Wal-Mart dropped 6%. Massive change had come to the grocery industry, and it was coming from outside-in. It was happening to the industry, not by the industry and investors were placing their bets on the outsiders.

There are already some examples of new business models impinging on the construction industry. The most notable example is Elon Musk's Boring Company that estimates that it can reduce the cost of tunneling by a factor of 10X and the time it takes to bore a tunnel by a factor of 14X. It is already working on a hyper-loop project from New York to Washington DC that would enable travel between the cities in 29 minutes.

Because of her real world experience, Barb's perspective is not a voice from academia crying in the wilderness, but is a serious warning from an industry insider. Echoes of what Barb is warning about could be found in the opening address at the conference from Eddie Stewart, President of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). The AGC represents 26,000 firms in the construction industry including general contractors, specialty-contracting firms, and service providers, but predominantly small contractors. He also noted that the construction industry lags most industries in adopting digital technology. He added that the industry as a whole is facing a labour shortage and the duration of projects is getting shorter. He also warned that disruption is coming or maybe is already here.

At a BIM conference in Toronto several years ago, Patrick MacLeamy's, Chairman of buildingSMART and CEO of HOK, message was very simple. In the U.S. buildings are too expensive, too inefficient to operate and maintain, and don't last long. The problem is that the construction industry is too fragmented. The process of orchestrating many disciplines in an adversarial, litigation-prone environment is too complex and leads to frequent budget and schedule overruns, evidence of a seriously broken business model.

Young people in the industry are asking why things are still done in the traditional way, which they find stupid. The resistance to change is so-inbuilt that under 30 year olds are saying that the construction companies they want to work for don't exist, so they leave the industry. One of the ways she hopes to help the industry to change from within is by effecting a culture change by encouraging the under 30s folks to remain and change the industry. Barb is working on putting together education programs to keep young people in the industry hoping that the next generation will help construction disrupt itself before it is disrupted by somebody from outside.

July 30, 2018

Construction productivity is a challenge in the world's advanced economies. Globally, labour productivity growth in construction has averaged only one percent a year over the past two decades, compared with growth of 2.8 percent for the total world economy. In the Unites States labour productivity in construction has actually declined. A recent report from the UK Government Infrastructure and Projects Authority, "Transforming Infrastructure Performance", provides evidence for stagnant productivity in the UK construction industry and outlines the government's plan to address this problem including development of a digital twin.

A recent McKinsey study revealed that construction is one of the least digitized industries in the world. McKinsey Global Institute’s Industry Digitization Index combines 27 indicators to measure the digital assets, digital usage, and digital workers in each sector. Construction is among the least digitized sectors in the world, at a level comparable to agriculture and hunting. According to the McKinsey index construction comes second to last in the United States and last in Europe. Wipro, Booz Allen Hamilton, Aconex, Jacobs, McKinsey, Hexagon, Trimble, Bentley, Autodesk, and many others believe that the construction industry is poised for a digitization revolution and are investing heavily in technology to enable this to happen including geospatial, BIM and full lifecycle BIM, machine learning, drones, mixed reality, big data, analytics, automation and hyperautomation. There are an increasing number of technology startups in the construction industry. There are also promising signs of interest in underground detection and information sharing.

The Transforming Infrastructure Performance report reiterates the widely held view that the UK construction supply chain "as a whole is under‑achieving. It has low profitability and invests too little in capital, research and development and training.” Transforming Infrastructure Performance (TIP) is the UK government’s plan to increase the effectiveness of investment in infrastructure including transport and energy networks, and social infrastructure (schools and hospitals) by improving productivity in the way assets are designed, built and operated.

The Digital Built Britain program is a key part of the government’s plan to develop the UK's digital data capabilities which included developing a ‘digital twin’. In the UK it is estimated that new assets add less than 0.5% each year to the value of existing infrastructure, which highlights the importance of improving the performance of existing assets. It is expected that a digital twin of the real world estate will help inform government decisions to maximize full lifecycle performance and benefits of assets.

A digital twin includes above and below ground assets. Key dimensions of a digital twin are location and condition of each asset. The UK has two research projects focused on the underground part of a national digital twin. Mapping the Underworld aimed at developing technology to locate in 3D all buried utility assets without excavation. One of the key outcomes of this project was estimated direct, indirect and social costs of utility strikes during excavation by researchers at the University of Birmingham. The second phase Assessing the Underworld focused on geophysical tools to assess the condition of buried pipelines and cables, and of the ground in which they are buried, and of the surface transport infrastructures beneath which they are buried.

Combining above and below-ground information into one national single data model/data exchange framework will provide a foundation for the development of smart cities. Project Iceberg is an exploratory project undertaken by the British Geological Survey, Ordnance Survey and the Future Cities Catapult to investigate ways to integrate data and services relating to the underground with other city data. To date two reports Market Research into the Current State of Playand Global Case Studies and Defining the problem space for an integrated data operating system above and below ground have been published.The medium term objective is to take these concepts forward with project partners to develop new digital data demonstrator projects.

June 14, 2018

At HxGNLIve in Las Vegas Juergen Dold announced another very impressively designed device in the BLK line called the BLK3D. It is designed to be a game changer in the interior measurement space traditionally addressed by Leica's DISTO line because of its ease of use, size and paper-eliminating functionality.

The BLK3D follows in the footsteps of the BLK360, which is a game changer in the terrestrial laser scanner space because of its ease of use (one button), size (weighs 1kg / size 165 mm tall x 100 mm diameter), its capability (full 360 scan in less than 3 mins), and range (mm accuracy at 60 m). It it is intended the democratize laser scanning to other professionals beyond surveyors.

The BLK3D is small, somewhat larger than my Samsung Note 5. It has two photo cameras and two laser range finders. I had a chance to chat with Johannes Hotz, Business Development at Leica Geosystems who explained that it is intended to replace the laborious paper-based measuring processes used in interior spaces. Leica Geosystems worked with architects, designers and contractors who work in interior spaces, and identified paper-based processes that could be replaced by a digital process.

The two cameras on the BLK3D allows you to capture a 3D record on-site that can be taken back to the office and shared as a JPG file. The device does not require anything to be uploaded to the cloud for post processing, it does all the processing itself. Once a 3D image has been created, you can tap on the screen on two locations, and it will measure and display the distance between the two points. if has edge and corner detection so that if you tap near a corner or an edge, it will snap to the exact corner or edge to ensure you get a precise answer (mm precision at up to two or three meters.) It replaces the process of making a measurement with a tape measure or laser range finder, writing the measured distance down on a piece of paper and then repeating the process over and over again for every measurement you need,

The BLK3D allows contractors to easily record images of their work at the time they do it so that afterwards if there are legal issues that have a permanent record of their work including what was there before they installed a cable or pipe and what the installation looked like after they completed their work.

This device is well designed as the BLK360 is and really lowers the bar on ease of use much as the BLK360 did for laser scanning. I have used other Leica DISTO devices which are clearly professional devices. I actually held and used the BLK3D for a few minutes and the basic functionality does appear to be usable by anyone - take a picture and then measure a distance by tapping on two points on the screen is a no-brainer. There is more advanced functionality which I didn't attempt to use. For example, you can create floor plans and import existing ones. You can also add measurable images. I expect that if I could sit down with the device for an hour, I would be able to use most of its capability.

Mark Enzer, chief technology officer at Mott MacDonald UK and proposed chair of the Digital Framework Task Group (DFTG) which is tasked to drive these reports’ implementation forward in his keynote at Geo Business 2018 in London, explained that there will be a greater focus on existing infrastructure. Digital abundance where the cost of everything digital has dropped dramatically over the last couple of decades has transformed many industries from banks to airlines automobile manufacturing. Construction represents about 10 % of GDP and construction productivity has plateaued over the past 40 years whereas general industrial productivity has doubled. Mark pointed out that the UK has primarily mature infrastructure to maintain and operate and construction has to change to reflect this.

Based on the concept that data in the form of a national digital twin is just as important as phyical assets, digital delivery and physical delivery go hand in hand. Key to digital delivery are BIM, geospatial, a common data environment, and asset information management. A national digital twin would include above and below ground assets.

Managing this data is about making sense of it for better decision making. Fundamental to this process is rethinking value, not just the value of a finished building or infrastructure asset, but output per ‎£ over the entire lifecycle of an infrastructure asset. This means moving beyond BIM Level 2 to full lifecyle BIM including operate and maintain.

A coordinated digital transformation landscape is required to achieve this digital transformation strategy for economic transformation. He sees the many organization in the UK infrastructure and construction sector coalescing around ICG, representing Highways England, Network Rail, Crossrail, Highspeed Rail 2 (HS2), Heathrow Airport and others and Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) representing the UK BIM Alliance and others to enable this to happen. The Centre for Digital Built Britain is a partnership between the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the University of Cambridge to deliver a smart digital economy for infrastructure and construction for the future and transform the UK construction industry’s approach to the way the UK plans, builds, maintains and uses its social and economic infrastructure.

January 02, 2018

The latest estimate of the annual contribution of the geospatial industry to the world economy of US$400 billion represents a substantial increase over a previous estimate of US$150-270 billion released in 2013. Both reports agree that the total contribution of geospatial data and technology annually to the world's economy is to be calculated in trillions of US dollars. There is evidence that geospatial's contribution is increasing.

AlphaBeta used consumer surveys from 22 countries, big data analysis of online job postings and other analytics to determine the impact of geospatial data, technology and services on the world economy. The study (The Economic Impact of Geospatial Services, AlphaBeta, September 2017) estimates that geospatial services generated annual revenue of US$400 billion per year in 2016 - this directly contributed to increasing the world's GDP. In addition geospatial data, technology and services save time and fuel for the travelling public - this contributes to increasing labour productivity. The study estimates that these efficiency benefits save the public over US$550 billion per year. Together the contribution in efficiency gains and direct revenue are estimated to reach almost a trillion US dollars. This is viewed as a conservative estimate of the contribution of geospatial to the world economy since the study was able to quantify only a few of the ways that geospatial data, technology and services benefit the economy. The ways that AlphaBeta was able to quantify in which geospatial contributes to the world economy include productivity gains for the travelling public, direct revenue generated by the geospatial industry, and revenue gains and cost savings in other industries from using geospatial data and technology.

Productivity - digital map data and technology shorten traveling time by 12% (estimated to be worth US$ 264 billion). It also saves US$ 20 billion in fuel. Geospatial also enables consumers to make buying decisions faster, saving more than 21 billion hours (estimated to be worth US$283 billion).

Indirect revenue and savings - the study suggests that the increased revenue from geospatial-enabled services is several times higher that direct revenue to the geospatial industry. For example, the study estimates that digital maps drives US$1.2 trillion of sales worldwide. Furthermore the study estimates that geospatial technology improves revenues and costs by at least 5 percent in sectors contributing more than 70 percent to global GDP, for example, retail and mining. This has an estimated value of about US$2.7 trillion.

Other non-quantified benefits - other benefits that are difficult to put a price tag on include creating 4 million jobs, reducing automobile emissions by 1,686 million metric tons, reducing emergency response time by up to to 20% in some countries, and improving emergency preparedness.

To put this in context, according to a report prepared by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in June 2012 the geospatial services industry in the United States generated annual revenues of $75 billion. The BCG report estimated the economic impact of the geospatial services industry on government, business, and consumers to be $1.6 trillion in revenues (greater efficacy) and $1.4 trillion (about 8.7% of the U.S. GDP) in cost savings (greater efficiency). In 2013 Google released a report What is the economic impact of Geo services ? prepared by Oxera Consulting Ltd. Global revenues from geospatial products and services as defined by Oxera was estimated to be $150-$270 billion per year. The $270 billion estimate was computed by scaling up the BCG estimate for the United States to the world economy. The latest report considerably increases the estimated direct revenue to the geospatial industry, but is inline with the 2013 report in estimating that the total benefits of geospatial to the economy lies in the range of several trillions of US dollars. The improvements in revenue and costs in all industries which use geospatial data and technology is estimated to amount to roughly 3% of the world's GDP.

For comparison the most quoted estimate of geospatial data an technology to a national economy is a 2008 a report prepared for the CRCSI & ANZLIC by ACIL Tasman estimated that the spatial information sector contributed between 0.6% and 1.2% of the Australian GDP in in 2006-2007. The recent Google results suggest that the proliferation of geospatial data and services has increased the penetration of geospatial in the world's economy.

There is other evidence that geospatial is proliferating in the world's economy. McKinsey has estimated that by 2020 the benefits (difference between willingness to pay and the cost of applications) that customers, consumers and businesses, will enjoy from location-based applications will reach as much as US$700 billion/year. Most of this, about 70 %, will be the consumer benefit from time and fuel saved by using GNSS navigation systems including those with real-time traffic information and mobile LBS applications. The remaining 30 % of the benefits will be through location-enabled applications such as geo-targeted mobile advertising. Smart navigation applications are estimated to provide $500 billion in value to global consumers in time and fuel saved by 2020. Geo-targeted advertising could represent more than 5 percent of total global advertising spending by 2020.

A major industry where geospatial is already having a significant impact which may accelerate is construction. Globally construction is expected to grow by almost 70% from $7.2 trillion today to $12 trillion by 2020. Construction productivity has been stagnant in many advanced economies for decades. It has been slow to adopt process and technological innovations and its R&D spending has lagged other industries. In a recent report, Imagining construction’s digital future, McKinsey suggests compelling reasons why the construction industry is ripe for disruption and how digitization might contribute to its transformation. Two of the technologies that McKinsey identifies that will be key in the anticipated transformation are geospatial and BIM.

November 19, 2017

In a new report from the Brookings Institution Digitalization and the American workforce the changing requirements for digital skills for job types covering 90% of the U.S. workforce has found dramatic changes in the last 15 years. As recently as 2002 under half of U.S. jobs required digital skills. By 2016 70% of jobs required digital skills. Almost a quarter of U.S. jobs now require high digital skills.

Virtually all industry groups saw increased digital skill requirements increase from 2002 to 2016. The industries leading the digital charge were professional, scientific and technical services; media; and finance and insurance. Trailing the pack are education, transportation and warehousing, basic goods manufacturing, and construction. Looking at construction the report notes that in the period 2010-2016 construction output out rose by 2.7%, wages rose by 1.4%, and productivity decreased by -0.6%, highlighting the continuing challenge of productivity stagnation in the construction industry. Among occupations construction labourers have the lowest digital skills, perhaps one of the reasons paper drawings still typify construction sites.

During this period the digital skill level of even the least digitalized occupations have risen. Welders and heavy truck drivers saw their digtial skillls scores triple or more. By 2016 48 percent of low digital skills occupations employing 33 million workers had become medium-digital or even high-digital occupations. Among the occupations transitioning from low digital scores to medium or high include tool and die makers and bus and truck mechanics. Even at the very bottom end, the digital skills of construction laborers increased through not by enough to move them out of the low digital skills category.

June 29, 2017

At GeoBusiness 2017 in London, Simon Rawlinson of Arcadis, argued passionately for improving the efficency of the construction industry, which is 8% of the UK's GDP. Digitalization, in which BIM + geospatial play a key role, is essential to delivering on making construction attractive for private investment. In the UK construction productivity has not improved in 25 years and right now the construction industry is so unproductive that it can't attract top labour talent, wouldn't attract an Uber or Google and is a drag on the rest of the economy.

Clients/owners have a big role in the transformation of construction. One of the practices that is responsible for the low level of motivation for construction productivity improvement is procurement. Lowest bid based on CAPEX does not encourage innovation. But there are signs that this procurement policy is being replaced in some government procurements by lowest OPEX or TOTEX. For example, the competition to provide rolling stock for the Crossrail line was based on lowest OPEX and resulted in an important innovation, smart, sensor-equipped trains. One of the goals of the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), one of several Leadership Councils in the UK, is to lower construction costs by 33% and to deliver projects 50% faster - providing clear benefits to owners.

Another problem is that the construction industry doesn't collaborate very well. Collaboration needs to be encouraged among folks who have traditionally competed or not collaborated. There are signs that this is changing too. Large projects like Crossrail have driven more collaboration, in an industry that historically discouraged collaboration and created employment for the legal profession. To increase collaboration the construction industry needs to develop common ways of working with shared data by adopting common standards, which will work to increasing innovation by enabling competition based on a common platform. Much as a BIM model is a digital twin of a building or linear infrastructure, a 3D map of underground and above ground infrastructure is a digital twin of a city or town. To make this accessible to all requires shared standards for spatial data - BIM and geospatial.

The entire UK economy is moving towards becoming data-driven and construction is lagging behind. Simon's recommendation is that the new government needs to keep to the existing program and deliver on the goals of Digital Built Britain and Construction 2025 including better management of data and information, digital fabrication instead of on-site development, procurement based on TOTEX, and using regulation, through ofgem and ofwat, for example, to drive digitalization of the construction industry.

May 24, 2017

The construction industry in the UK, as in many of the world's advanced economies, suffers from low productivity compared to other industries, a situation which hasn't improved in 25 years according to Simon Rawlinson of the Construction Leadership Council. Various types of laser scanners, software that creates point clouds from photos, and handheld scanners have the potential to dramatically improve productivity, but users of these devices in the construction and asset management industries are finding that these devices are creating a major data management problem which has to be addressed to enable the technology to achieve its full potential. At Geo Business 2017 in London I had a chance to chat with Pascal Martinez, Director Business Development at Bentley Systems about Bentley's vision for converging reality capture, reality modeling, and asset management assist in improving productivity in the construction and maintenance of building and infrastructure assets.

Pascal was originally with Acute 3D which was acquired by Bentley two years ago. Acute 3D, now called ContextCapture, was originally targeted at creating point clouds from photos captured with an ordinary digital camera. The latest version of ContextCapture is able to integrate point clouds from LiDAR and photo cameras to generate a common 3D mesh using imagery from both sources.

Bentley's vision for the evolution of reality capture is to be able to integrate data from multiple sources, both 2D and 3D, to create a common 3D mesh, classify it by associating areas of the mesh with existing data from other sources stored in databases such as Bentley's Assetwise and Projectwise and then link objects in the mesh to information about the specific assets stored in the databases.

At the conference the model of what already exists or what has actually been constructed was frequently referred to as the digital twin of a building or other type of infrastructure (previously BIM). Associating classified elements of 3D meshes from reality capture with vector elements in the digital twin has a number of applications. In the case of a new building or new infrastructure it enables monitoring compliance with design during construction, even on a day by day basis, to catch issues early.

Being able to automatically associate areas of a 3D mesh with buildings, facilities and equipment in plants, and linear assets such as transmission lines, railways, and roads would have a dramatic impact not only on the efficiency of construction monitoring but also on asset management by reducing the time require to scan all or part of a facility and compare the captured reality with the digital as-builts. Pascal showed a very simple, but very cool, way to do this now, by placing a QR code on each piece of equipment which then can be clicked on in the mesh (scan) to bring up information stored in Assetwise about the piece of equipment.

November 16, 2016

A Report by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate has recommended that since more than 60% of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are sourced from the world's existing stock of infrastructure, ensuring infrastructure is built to deliver sustainability is the only way to meet the COP21 goal of keeping warming below 2°C and to guarantee long-term, inclusive and resilient growth. Infrastructure underpins core economic activity and is an essential foundation for achieving inclusive sustainable growth. Investing in sustainable infrastructure is key for reigniting global growth and reducing climate risk.

The Global Commission is chaired by former President of Mexico Felipe Calderón and co-chaired by the climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern.

The report estimates that $90 trillion in sustainable infrastructure investment will be required over the next 15 years. It stresses that this will require a shift in the world's construction and financial sectors to ensure that this money, which will be increasingly private, is spent on low-carbon, energy-efficient projects.

Change in infrastructure spending required for a 2°C scenario (percentage change in expenditure over 2015-2030 compared to Business-as-usual)

The report has adopted a broad definition of infrastructure which includes both traditional types of infrastructure; energy, public transport, buildings, water supply, and sanitation and also natural infrastructure; forest landscapes, wetlands and watershed protection. Infrastructure underpins core economic activity and is an essential foundation for achieving inclusive sustainable growth. It is indispensable for development and poverty elimination, as it enhances access to basic services, education and work opportunities, and can boost human capital and quality of life.

Investment is needed to replace ageing infrastructure in advanced economies and to accommodate higher growth and structural change in emerging market and developing countries. This will require a significant increase globally, from the estimated US$3.4 trillion per year currently invested in infrastructure to about US$6 trillion per year. The Global Commission found that it does not need to cost much more to ensure that this new infrastructure is compatible with climate goals, and the additional up-front costs can be fully offset by efficiency gains and fuel savings over the infrastructure lifecycle.

Importance of private infrastructure financing

Transforming the financial system and its intermediaries is essential to scaling up sustainable infrastructure finance. Public finance and investment will continue to play a critical role, particularly in low-income countries. But large amounts of private capital are needed and this will only flow if the right market signals are present within the financial system. The report suggests that reforms are needed in the financial regulatory system as well as other policy reforms, specifically, to price carbon to level the playing field between sustainable and unsustainable options in order to encourage private investment in sustainable infrastructure.

Private investment requires financial returns. Efficiency in construction and operation and maintenance of infrastructure is essential. Increasing productivity drives technological innovation. Many governments as well as private sector engineering and construction firms have identified building information modeling (BIM) as a key foundation for increasing construction productivity. Owners are beginning to recognize the benefits of full lifecycle BIM especially when augmented by geospatial technology.

Energy

The report estimates that energy infrastructure will require investment of US$25 trillion, or nearly a third of total core infrastructure investment over the coming 15 years. In addition energy efficiency will require investment of about the same magnitude. Building sustainable energy infrastructure encourages economic growth, reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and plays a key role in building resilience.

Energy efficiency

The report found that energy efficiency is a highly cost-effective way to manage demand and reduce the investment requirements for overall energy supply. Increasing energy efficiency in industry, buildings and transport could achieve up to half of the emission reductions needed globally to peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 according to the IEA. Energy efficiency investments in IEA member countries since 1990 have avoided US$5.7 trillion of energy expenditure. The IEA estimates further investments could boost global GDP by US$18 trillion by 2035, increasing growth by as much as 1.1% per year. Energy efficiency measures are estimated to create up to three times as many jobs as fossil fuel supply investments per dollar of investment.

A key recommendation of the Global Commission’s 2015 report was to scale up commitments by development banks working with governments and the private sector to invest at least US$1 trillion per year by 2030 in clean energy, including energy efficiency.

Air pollution

Outdoor air pollution, much of which is associated with fossil fuels, is linked to nearly 4 million premature deaths per year. In China, it is estimated that air pollution killed around 1.6 million people in China in 2013. In India, the air pollution toll in 2013 stood at 1.4 million deaths. In Europe, coal plant emissions account for more than 18,200 premature deaths, about 8,500 new cases of chronic bronchitis, and over 4 million lost working days each year. Analysis for the Global Commission shows that the health and mortality burden of air pollution amounts to as much as 4% or more of GDP in some countries. Recent analysis by the OECD has found that globally air pollution-related healthcare costs alone are projected to increase from US$21 billion in 2015 to US$176 billion in 2060.

Cities

It is estimated that by 2050, two-thirds of the global population will live in cities, and over 70% of the global demand for infrastructure over the next 15 years is expected to be in urban areas. How cities develop is important both for growth and for climate change. The report emphasizes that investment in sustainable infrastructure is essential to make cities inclusive, safe, and resilient.

June 01, 2015

The electricity industry is undergoing a transformation. With utilities embracing geospatial technology and turning into data driven enterprises in the Smart Grid scenario, the sector is staring at an innovative future.

The National Academy of Engineering identifies the electric power grid as the first of 20 major engineering achievements that has had the greatest impact on the quality of life in the 20th Century. Modern society has reached a point where virtually every crucial economic and social function depends on the secure, reliable operation of electric power infrastructure. But because it has become so crucial for modern life, it faces major challenges.

The major drivers for the fundamental change underway in the electric power industry are increasing demand, universal access, decarbonizing electric power, reducing revenue losses, and grid reliability and resilience. Some of the technologies that are contributing to this transformation are intelligent devices integrated with a communications network, distributed renewable power generation especially wind and solar PV, net zero energy buildings, microgrids, and the new remote sensing technologies of subsurface utility engineering.

For an industry not known historically for rapid change, many utilities are in the midst of transforming themselves into data driven enterprises. Recently IDC published its future predictions for the development of the electric power industry over the period 2015-2018. For many in the industry these are quite startling and clearly reflect an industry that is rapidly evolving.

The technology roadmap for the smart grid involves the deployment of increasing numbers of intelligent electronic devices for sensing and for control. The challenge is federating the data from all of these devices, extracting information from it, and dispatching the information to the right control devices.

With the changes that the electric power industry is undergoing now, analysts see geospatial technology poised to become a foundation technology for the smart grid. The role of utility GIS is expected to touch every aspect of a utilities business, affecting customers, operations and management because geospatial is the logical technology that can provide the basis for integrating data from intelligent electronic devices such as smart meters and the information silos associated with proprietary applications.

You can read more about smart grid and relevance of geospatial data and technology, real-time big spatial data, standards for interoperability, the importance of data quality, open source geospatial technology, spatial analytics and other aspects of the role of geospatial technology in the smart grid in Geospatial World.